Bleeding Edge is a four piece Groove/Thrash Metal band from Pune, India. Their music is fusion of thrash and groove with influences from progressive rock and death metal. Being inactive for quite some time and having multiple line up changes since 2009, Bleeding Edge is now set and active again. We caught up with vocalist Shardul Gangal for this little coversation.

Metalhead Spotted: Greetings from Metalhead Spotted! First of all throw off few details about Bleeding Edge?

Shardul: Greetings from Bleeding Edge as well! We are a metal band from Pune come into the action around late 2011 with 4 members,

Karan-bassist

Habeel-lead guitars,

Nishit-drums and me, Shardul- vocals and rhythm.

Metalhead Spotted: How are the thoughtful preparations and practices going on for Stormfest 2?

Shardul: Preparations are going on in full force. Stormfest 2 is looking to be a huge gig! The fact that Meshuggah and Tesseract played that stage pushes us to be at our best.Everyone is very stoked about this, specially Karan, he has taken his shit to a new level you will witness on the 9th.

Metalhead Spotted: Have you guys come up with any new compositions for Stormfest 2?

Shardul: Yes, absolutely! We will be playing two never before heard originals for stormfest 2. Something to look forward to!

Metalhead Spotted: You guys started off as rock band Eternity, and soon changed name to Bleeding Edge. At a time what changes do you bring through the music?

Shardul: Haha, actually I'm the only surviving member from Eternity. As we turned from eternity to Bleeding Edge the most important change was the genre itself. We ventured into thrash metal as back then for every 16 year old Metallica and Megadeth were the ultimate metal band and hence the ultimate influence. The main factor for most change was exploring the genre. This led to multiple line up changes later on. It wasn't till 2011 when I was actually serious about Bleeding

Edge. It was then when I started the look out for serious musicians and then Bleeding Edge was reborn to what we know of it today.

Metalhead Spotted: Being a musician what are some of your initial influences?

Shardul: Influences are never static. We get influenced not just by our idols but also the events that take place in our daily lives. It keeps it real. But to answer your question, bands like Gojira, Meshuggah, Tool, Slipknot and Lamb of God have heavily influenced our music. Periphery, Tesseract, Metallica , Megadeth, Eluveitie, Insomnium, etc have also influenced us.

Metalhead Spotted: How will you describe your lyrical style? can u elaborate as to what themes are behind your lyrics.

Shardul: The lyrics shed light on the relatively unknown social evils of our society. Our song unperson is about the bride selling that happens in the rural areas. Our lyrical themes are more feel driven than trying to prove a point sitting down with a dictionary. Our upcoming song aptly titled afterparty is a rant about how people take to the

streets post an unfortunate event but won't even think about intervening when it's happening.

Metalhead Spotted: We have marked some neo-classical melodies and guttural vocals on some songs. How do you feel about effectual Bleeding Edge sound?

Shardul: It took quite a while for us to discover the 'Bleeding Edge' sound. It was quite hard to come to terms with all the influences. Me being the

groove thrash guy, Karan is the death listener, Habeel the prog fanatic and Nishit is the grind and slam guru. You see the end result can only be called metal. Hence our every song sounds different.

Metalhead Spotted: What are some of artistry guitar skills oftentimes being used by you guys?

Shardul: This is a tricky question. But to be precise. It's just stuff that sounds good nothing fancy at all.

Metalhead Spotted: Bleeding Edge was formed in 2009, did the band undergone any line up changes?

Shardul: When we started off back in 2009 for me it was a school band. Playing Green Day stuff. It was not until 2011 where I got together with an entirely different line up and started playing metal and even since then we have undergone multiple line up changes. You won't believe, Bleeding Edge started off as a 6 piece, then was a 5 piece and now a 4 piece band. But finally we now are an extremely stable line up kickin some good ass.

Metalhead Spotted: You guy was the part of Stormfest also, What are some of experiences would you like to fetch about it?

Shardul: Stormfest 1 had extreme bands like Gutslit and Cosmic Infusion, so the crowd was totally insane! We enjoyed our set as well as the other bands. One funny incident that happened was that, we started playing 'Backbone' a Gojira cover and some drunk guy fell on the stage unknowingly putting me on a clean patch. I played the whole song clean. Later Habeel pointed it out to me but by then the song was over.

Metalhead Spotted: Are there any plans for 2014? Shed some light on upcoming shows and albums.

Shardul: Stormfest 2 being the closest we also have a few shows lined up after that. But before anything else on the 20th of jan we will be releasing our 3rd single 'Afterparty'. And there is an album in the pipeline. We are in a hurry to put out our first record coz probably it will be our last.

Metalhead Spotted: Thanks for your valuable time. If there is anything you like to share with your fans, do go ahead.

Shardul: Thank you for having us over. To wrap up I would like to thank everyone who has been there with us throughout, supporting us and also criticizing us. It is you the guys and girls in the crowd who are the ultimate inspiration for us to keep moving forward. Thanks a lot.